


Soul of Madness

by cloud_wolfbane



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-16
Updated: 2014-05-16
Packaged: 2018-01-25 00:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1621904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloud_wolfbane/pseuds/cloud_wolfbane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John was young he witnessed something he shouldn't have and his daemon settled much too early. Years later he meets Sherlock Holmes who has his own unique soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically a collection of all my favorite troupes; crossover fic, homeless!John, Alternate first Meaning, and unique!John. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy. 
> 
> Also, I did draw the pictures, please don't be too offended by my terrible attempt at drawing Sherlock.

# The Soul of Madness

By the time John was five, mystical creatures fascinated him. He had watched every movie and cartoon his parents would let him, and on his birthday, mum had given him a book of creatures with some of the most amazing pictures he had ever seen. 

On the night that changed John’s life, he was tucked in bed with a flashlight he had nicked from his older sister. He and his daemon, Helios, were flipping through the book. His parents and sis were in the living room laughing over some sitcom. John was supposed to be sleeping, because he was little. 

He was reading the last entry when he heard the shattering burst of the front door being kicked in. Helios jerked up from his side, her Golden Retriever eyes wide. 

There was a sharp scream from his mum, a cry from Harry, and his da was screaming, begging someone to “Please, God No!” 

There were two sharp cracks and his da was howling. There was a screech like John had never heard from his Da`s hawk daemon, but another sharp crack promptly shut it off. 

John knew what that sound was, a gunshot. He lived in a council estate in London, he had known the sound since the moment his parents had been able to tell him to avoid it. He also knew what it could do, had seen the puff of gold dust of a daemon being snuffed out as their human died. 

He whimpered, clutching Helios to his chest. 

“John?” she called questioning. Helios could change into anything she wanted, but five-year-olds had five-year-old daemons and she was so very small. 

“We need something strong, something to scare them off,” John whispered and flipped through his book. “Here,” he murmured, pointing at a picture of the Enfield. It was a fox mixed with a falcon and looked scary pouncing on the mouse in the book. “Or a…” he flipped to the last entry he had been looking at, the Zburator. It was a blend of wolf and dragon and could breath fire. Fire would be good, that would scare them. 

“I ca…can…t..try,” Helios whispered. 

They could hear someone moving around the house, breaking glass and slamming open doors. John’s room was at the end of the hall, but he had nowhere to hide. He slipped off the bed and turned off the flashlight. He could see fine from the light leaking under the door. 

Helios squirmed at his side. She had grown feathers from her back and tail, scales pushed from her legs, but she couldn’t seem to force the shape. John shook, feeling her distress. Helios had never had trouble making a shape once they had seen a picture of it. His door flew open, filling the room with light. 

“Found the other kid,” a gruff voice called. John couldn’t make out the man’s face with the light coming from behind him, but he could make out the drooling Hyena daemon at the man’s side. “Think he might be autistic or something, his daemon looks like, hmm not sure what that is really.” 

“Well put him out his misery,” a voice from behind the dark man called, “we can’t leave witnesses.” 

“Sorry kid,” the man shrugged and cocked the gun. 

John jerked at the sharp grate of metal against metal, of the click of the bullet sliding into place. “Helios,” he wheezed. He was so scared, he couldn’t even move, his body just shook, heart pounding against his heaving chest. 

“John,” Helios cried, then she changed. 

John could always feel it when Helios changed, something in his chest shifted with her, but this change was like his heart and lungs and ribs were being yanked free. 

Helios roared above him, her body growing and expanding to a giant creature. She had mixed the two creatures from the book. Her face was sharp and angular like a wolf, but scales peaked amongst the fur and her feet were taloned liked a dragon. Huge falcon wings spread from her back, some dark pattern of brown or grey. Her tail was long and bushy like a fox, but with feathers fanned out at the end like a rudder. 

The man drew in a sharp gasp, shocked by the sudden monster that outweighed his daemon 2 to 1. “You will not hurt him,” Helios roared and the sound was something like the hunting howl of a wolf, the screeching call of a falcon on the wing, and the mighty challenge of a dragon protecting its hoard. Smoke poured between her jaws and then fire. 

Heat and light pulsed into the room. The man was screaming and the room smelled like that time his mum had overheated her hairdryer. John saw a flash of gold dust, and then darkness. 

  


****

Greg Lestrade was a twenty-year-old, wet-behind-the-ears, constable the first time he had gotten called into a homicide. His Detective Inspector had actually apologized, not wanting to break Lestrade in on a murder that involved kids, but they were short staffed that night and Greg drew the short straw. 

The crime was at a collection of council estate flats in a bad part of London. The whole place was awash with lights. The LFB were already there, their fire engines having been called in first when a fire had erupted in one the flats. 

Lestrade took a deep breath and scratched behind Riddell’s ears. She pressed against his leg for comfort, “Into the breach, boss?”

“Yeah,” he murmured, looking down at the white German Shepard, “Into the breach.” 

The fire had barely spread, just sent up enough smoke to alarm the neighbors. The front door had obviously been kicked down and the three gun shot victims on the floor suggested that it hadn’t be done by the LFB. 

DI Gregson was kneeling over the male victim, he was holding a scratched up badge. 

“He was a cop?” Lestrade asked. 

Gregson nodded, lips down turned in a fierce scowl. “One of our own; gunned down in his own living room.” 

“Any survivors?” Lestrade asked, though he doubted it. 

“One, though he…” Gregson trailed off, flicking his gaze down the hall. “I’ll show you.” 

Lestrade followed Gregson down the hall. The walls were splotchy with soot and the whole place smelled like singed carpet. The back room was obviously a kid’s room, the walls were light blue and plastic stars had been pressed to the ceiling, some now melted into it. There was a dead body in the doorway, or at least Lestrade thought it was a body. The form was a large melted lump of char, like someone had torched the person with a flamethrower. 

“What did this?” Lestrade gasped. 

Riddell pressed against his side, ears back in discomfort. “There’s someone here,” she growled. 

Gregson pointed at the far wall. 

At first look, Lestrade thought it was just a pile of blankets or something, but at second glance he realized the scorch marks radiated from that point. The pile shifted and stood. Revealing one of the biggest daemon’s Lestrade had ever seen. 

It was some great beast with wings, like a wolf/dragon/hawk hybrid. People could have fantasy creatures as a daemon, Lestrade had seen them before, but they always belonged to people in a psych ward. The last odd daemon he had seen had been a picture of Ted Bundy’s Naga curled about his shoulders before the trial. 

This daemon, however, was curled around a shivering little boy. His hair was so blond it was almost white and his eyes were a wide, petrified blue. He was also clutching a book of mythical creatures - that explained some things. 

“Hi there,” Lestrade called, stepping over the burned lump. Gregson reached to stop him, but he waved him off. “My name is Greg Lestrade, I’m a Constable from Scotland Yard.” He pulled his badge from his pocket, holding it out for the boy to see. He kept his eyes on the daemon, wary of the source of such fire. “What’s your name?” he asked

The boy looked at the badge for a long time, eyes squinted in concentration. He never moved his hands from the scaled side of his daemon. “My name’s John, this is Helios,” he whispered. 

“Nice to meet you John. Could you get Helios to change into something a little smaller, and I can carry you out of here. Would you like that?”

John shook his head.

“You don’t want to leave?” Lestrade asked. 

John shook his head, “No, I want to leave, but Helios can’t change.” 

Lestrade felt a hard lump build in his gut. “She can’t?”

“She’s stuck,” John murmured, scratching behind her ears. 

Lestrade gulped. Kid’s daemons could do amazing things; sometimes they changed into something that could protect their charge. He knew that children that suffered trauma usually had daemon’s that settled early. But John was so young, could hardly be four or five and his daemon had more then changed to protect him. She had shifted into a giant beast and had burned the threat to cinders. Helios looked about 2 meters long and a meter and a half high. Her wings stretched even longer, held high around her charge like a shield. 

“May I pick you up, John?” Lestrade asked, instead of all the other things he wanted to say.

With John’s permission, Lestrade wrapped the boy up in a blanket and carried him outside. Helios kept so close to him they were almost touching. He could feel the heat rolling off of her. Riddell kept close as well, the German Shepherd looking like a hill compared to a mountain next to Helios. 

Lestrade was homicide, not child services, so he was forced to hand John off to the necessary people and head back to the crime seen. It would be a very long time before he saw the boy again, and he would not be a boy any longer. 

****

 

Sherlock was ten when he decided that the only person he ever needed was Hyperion. Of course, Hyperion wasn’t really a person; he was Sherlock’s daemon. Hyperion was one of the rare daemons that were the same sex as their human, less than 10% of the population. 

Sherlock enjoys the rarity even if his dumb classmates make fun of him for it. “You have to settle as something unique Hyperion, we can’t be dull like Mark,” Sherlock scowled. Mark was one of the boy’s in his class. His daemon had settled as a pigeon earlier in the week, dull, dull, dull! 

“I could never be dull,” Hyperion rolled his eyes, perched on his desk as a small snow leopard. Hyperion favored smaller forms of animals, which Sherlock appreciated. It made him easier to carry. 

“Of course, not” Sherlock grinned, but switched to a scowl as his last match burned out against his fingers. “That was my last one, now what am I suppose to do for this experiment?”

“Don’t look at me,” Hyperion flicked his ears and started to groom himself. 

“Wait, that’s it,” Sherlock grinned and rushed over to his bookcase. He pulled out an old sketch-pad, the edges were tattered and torn, but there were still a few blank pages in the back. He took hours working on the sketch, making sure the details were just right. 

Hyperion ignored him, shifting into a weasel as he jumped from the desk to the bed. He snuggling against his pillow and set about ignoring his human. 

“Look, Hyperion, its perfect!” Sherlock beamed, holding up the drawing. 

Hyperion cracked open an eye, then sat up. “Oh,” he murmured, looking over the sketch. Sherlock was a skilled artist for his age, but he always had trouble with fantasy. His eidetic memory made drawing people and landscapes easy, but no one could say Sherlock lacked imagination. The sketch was a carefully detailed drawing of a dragon. Its lines were sleek like a cat, with small bat-like wings perfect for gliding and low flight. 

“Almost perfect,” he purred and shifted. Hyperion used the picture to guide his shape, stretching out his body to the long, sleek design of the dragon. He stayed about a meter long from tip to tail. Each inch was covered with black scales like ebony. His eyes were bright green and cat-like. Forcing the wings out of his back was difficult, his body did not want to have six limbs and his muscles protested the unusual shape. Hyperion added a few extra sets of horns along his jaw to go with the larger set Sherlock had drawn on the dragon’s head. They elongated his head and made him look fierce. With a final tweak of his body, Hyperion let out a small wisp of blue flame. 

“Oh,” Sherlock clapped,” that is perfect,” he ran his fingers along Hyperion’s back. The scales were smooth and warm; he didn’t feel very much like a reptile at all. “Can you hold it?”

Hyperion grinned, revealing a double row of needle-like fangs, “I can hold it forever.” 

****

John should have been adopted soon after entering foster care. He was young and cute enough and unendingly polite, but Helios towered over him like a deadly shadow. Her unusual size and even more unusual appearance kept people at bay. 

The foster system was filled with bullies, but no one dared bully John and his fire-breathing daemon. They gave him a very wide berth. Even John’s teachers stuck him in the back of the class and rarely called on him, but John was smart and stubborn. He wanted to be a doctor, wanted to help people, and that was exactly what he was going to do. 

John’s foster father was an older man named Jones. He had anywhere from 5 to 10 foster boys going in and out of house at any one time, but John would always hold a special place in his heart. 

As per usual, he found John tucked into a corner in the back yard, nose buried in an old anatomy book. It was a little chilly outside, but Helios was curled around him like a traveling heater. John was fast approaching the age where he would no longer be in the system, and was studying desperately to get into Med school.

“ ‘Lo, John, Helios,” Jones greeted. 

“Hey, Jones, Tresa,” John nodded at Jones’s sleek leopard daemon. Helios inclined her head in greeting; she hadn’t spoken to anyone, but John since that fateful night they settled.  
Jones took a seat in front of him, Tresa curling behind him in a mirror of John’s pose. “You’ve been studying pretty hard lately, it will be nice to brag to all the other parents that I have a boy in med school.” 

“I’m not in yet,” John remarked, offering a slight smile. 

Jones shrugged, “You’ll get in, I don’t doubt it.” 

“I might not,” John whispered, pressing his hand against Helios’s flank.

Jones had been the one assigned to John when social services brought him in. Jones had seen the new mythical creatures book that smelled like smoke and had heard how Helios had settled. “You know I’ve seen a lot of kids’ daemons settle. They always settle much too young and their forms always tell a story. Do you know what story Helios tells?”

John shook his head. 

“She tells me that you are strong and brave and courageous. That even as a little boy you would not go down without a fight. She tells me that you are creative  
and smart enough to imagine a shape that could protect you.”

“Not many people see it that way,” John grumbled, but he was flushed from the complement. 

“Then they’re idiots,” Jones barked, “don’t let anyone ever tell you you’re something you’re not.” 

John would eventually be accepted into St. Bart’s after applying to 5 different Med schools and one memorable interview with the Dean of the school. And when John couldn’t afford school anymore, he joined the Army and had them pay for it, because he was strong and brave and nothing was going to stand in his way. 

****

DI Lestrade was thirty-five when he first met Sherlock Holmes. 

He had been called in on the death of a sixty-five year old white male in an alley in downtown Westminster. The man had a history of heart disease and the forensic tech on scene, Anderson, had declared the COD as a myocardial infarction. 

The only reason Lestrade was called in on what should have been an obvious case was because the man was a high-ranking bank official and was in a part of town at a time of night that was very unusual to his habits. 

He sighed, looking down at the body. 

“A MI,” a man scoffed, “how ridiculous. Its obviously murder.”

Lestrade looked up, startled. There was a man a few feet in front of him, Christ, he hadn’t heard a sound. The man was tall, dressed to the nines in a sharp coat and suit, and looked like he had stepped out of a magazine. “Sir, you shouldn’t be back here,” Lestrade scowled. 

“I apparently should,” the man replied. He stalked forward and leaned in front of the small pile of golden dust that had once been the dead man’s daemon. 

“Sir!” Lestrade shouted, but before he could haul the man off, he was standing, holding out a small silver needle in his gloved hand. 

“Killed his daemon with a poisoned needle, man dropped dead with a heart attack,” a smug voice responded from the vicinity of the man’s neck. 

Lestrade blinked owlishly. He had noticed the black shape draped across the man’s shoulder, he assumed it was a cat or a huge lizard of some sort, but closer inspection revealed the daemon to be a small dragon. 

“Hey!” Donovan shouted from behind him, “Do you need me to drag this mad man out of here, sir? I can call the institution.” 

Lestrade stared at the sharp clothes, the dragon daemon, and then the small needle that every officer had overlooked. It was a risk, but Lestrade thought back to the little boy he had met years ago and the mythical daemon he had needed to protect him, and he decided to take a chance. “No, he’s assisting us in the case, I need an evidence bag.” 

The man’s eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed as he flicked his mercurial gaze over Lestrade’s form like reading a book. “ You’ve had an experience with mythical daemons before.” 

Lestrade took the needle and placed it in the evidence bag Donovan handed him. Then he held out his hand, “Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade and this is Riddell, now why don’t you tell me a bit more about this obvious murder.”

The man shook the offered hand, “Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective and this is Hyperion.” The dragon stood on his shoulder, wings outstretched so the thin membranes shimmered in the light, “ We are going to need access to a lab.” 

  
***  
John found his niche in the Army in a way he had never found before. Helios loved the desert and the way the warm thermals allowed her to fly in a way she never could in London.

No one questioned his sanity in the Army, because they were all crazy in their own way. When a soldier is bleeding out on the battlefield they don’t care what kind of daemon the doctor has. 

John found friendship and camaraderie in his unit. The 5th Northumberland Fusiliers was filled with daemons ranging from insects to birds to one soldier with a Bengal tiger. Helios certainly stood out, but now no one cared. 

Which is why when all that was pulled out from under him by a bullet to the shoulder, John may have gone a little crazy. 

He returned to London a broken man. He walked with a heavy limp that was all in his head, and his shoulder ached with every movement. Helios moved at his side like a shadow, her wings drooped at her side, leaving a trail of molting feathers. 

They gave him a pension, a dank bedsit, and a haughty therapist. John lasted two months before he moved to the streets. 

He found a nice spot under a bridge. There was a huge drainage pipe underneath that Helios could slip into and stay out of sight with his pack, while John slept underneath, curled up with a blanket and his cane. 

Every morning he woke to the near constant London drizzle and felt his leg and shoulder ache. He allowed himself ten minutes of indulging in the pain before he ventured out for food. 

Helios stayed hidden, keeping far enough behind to dodge between allies or jumping across roofs. 

John knew they had to be careful, if an officer spotted Helios then John would get dragged off to an institution without so much of a by your leave. There had been a homeless man off King Street with a feathered adder, it wasn’t even a proper mythical creature, but the police had swept him off the street and into a mental health facility. 

John picked through the bins behind an Italian restaurant off Northumberland Street. The owner always made sure to wrap the day old breadsticks in a plastic bag for the homeless. John fished out one of the bags, leaving the other for whoever came behind him. John fished a hunk of slightly moldy cheese and a barely bruised apple out of another bin a few streets over. 

It was a good haul. John put the apple in his pouch and ate the cheese in large bites as he walked. He shared a breadstick with the homeless woman, Carol, in Hyde Park. She was at least sixty and had been staying in the park for over ten years. Her Daemon is a handsome snowy owl named Sage, who spends most of his time sleeping on her shoulder. Carol used to be a college English teacher and John enjoys arguing over the daily crossword with her. 

“You should be careful wandering about at night, Love, there’s been rumors of a killer on the loose,” Carol remarked, writing in ‘Omentum’ on 6 down. 

“I’m tougher than I look, but I’ll keep an eye out,” John said, filling in 8 across. 

“Oh ‘Impressionists’ I should have known that,” Carol scowled. She shot a look at the dark shadow hiding in the bushes a few feet away, “I’m aware of your… toughness, but I’m also aware of your attraction to danger.” 

This time it was John’s turn to scowl, “I’ll keep my eyes open, I promise. Oh and ‘Crimson’ for 3 down.” 

They bickered back and forth until the puzzle was filled out. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Carol. Keep safe, yourself,” John gave her the rest of his breadsticks and left the park. 

****


	2. Chapter 2

“Another homeless victim,” Sherlock commented, approaching Lestrade. 

“Older woman, she’s been here for ages. First name Carol, last name unknown, daemon recorded as a snowy owl. Cause of death appears to be strangulation,” Lestrade clucked. “I’ve seen her around before, nice lady.” 

“English teacher, two older children, lost her husband around ten years ago, minor schizophrenia,” Sherlock listed off, he kneeled beside the body and pulled a folded paper from her scattered bag. “She met someone in the park this morning, male judging by the handwriting. They were close, this wasn’t the first time they met.” 

“Do you think he was the killer?” Lestrade asked. 

Hyperion shifted on Sherlock’s shoulders, flicking his tail in agitation. “Hard to tell, not enough data.” 

“Witnesses say they’ve seen a middle-aged man in the park every morning. Another homeless, but we couldn’t get a good description,” Lestrade remarked. 

“He smells strange, like soot or ash,” Riddell remarked, sniffing at the paper. 

“He also smells of mildew and a type of moss found in west London, brick dust from before the 40s,” Hyperion practically purred. 

“Hmm,” Sherlock scratched behind his crest, “I know where he is.” 

Lestrade followed Sherlock as the man tracked through the streets of London like a bloodhound. Riddell has a fantastic sense of smell, but Lestrade had never seen anyone track like Sherlock Holmes. 

They found a crumbling bridge hidden in the depths of the warehouse district. In the fading sunlight there was a huddle of threadbare blankets and newspaper under the bridge. 

“Oy,” Lestrade called out before Sherlock could wake the possibly murderous man. 

The pile shifted and a man stood up swiftly. He was a middle-aged man of short stature, clutching a cane, and looked rather harmless. “Officer,” the man ground out, his gaze darting about. 

Lestrade knew a runner when he saw one. He stepped in closer, close enough to tackle. “We need to ask you some questions Mr…” 

“John, just John,” the man remarked. “What kind of questions?” 

“Do you know an older woman from Hyde Park named Carol?” Lestrade asked.

John opened his mouth to answer, but was distracted by Sherlock. “You…” he gasped, eyes wide as he stared at Hyperion. He stepped forward, legs stiff, like he couldn’t control his movements. 

Sherlock was looking at John the same way he looked at locked room murders. His head tilted to the side, eyes narrowed with concentration. 

There was a scuffle of sound from behind John and a daemon Lestrade hadn’t seen in over twenty years dropped from the drainage tube. 

The other officers stepped back with a gasp. They had adjusted to Hyperion, but there was a significant difference between a cat-sized dragon and a horse-sized Enzbur (as John had once called her). 

Helios stepped next to her human, head held high. Her scales had grown dusty and her tan fur had grown dark with mud, but she was no less magnificent because of it. 

John scratched at her scruff. “This is…” he started, but Helios stepped in front of him and for the first time since John had been shot, she unfurled her wings. They were an unusual light grey with bars of brown on the underside, while the top was shades of brown. 

Hyperion, fascinated by the first mythical daemon he had seen in person, leapt from Sherlock’s shoulders. He flapped his wings madly so he could hover in front of her. “Hello, my name is Hyperion,” he introduced himself with a puff of blue flame to show off. 

“Helios,” she greeted, flames licking up her muzzle in a wolfish grin. 

John stared at her in surprise. Helios showing off by spreading her wings wasn’t a surprise, but John hadn’t seen her speak to another daemon since the night she settled. It had been one of the problems that made getting into Med School so hard. 

“John Watson, it’s a surprise to see you again,” Lestrade interrupted the exchange. 

John tilted his head, looking at the detective in confusion. “Oh,” he murmured, placing the face long lost in his memories. 

Sherlock fixed them both with his narrow gaze, but didn’t comment.

“Carol, the woman in the park you were seen meeting with, she was murdered,” Lestrade needed to get everyone back on track.

“Oh Carol,” John sighed, running a hand through his already wild hair. “She wasn’t even homeless you know. I mean she was homeless in the fact that she didn’t ever go home, but she had money. She had been an English professor at Oxford, retired with full pension, but her whole family died in a fire and she just couldn’t stand living there anymore. She said the house was still in her name, she just liked the park, helped her forget what she lost.” John wasn’t sure why he told them all that, he was still blindsided by the small dragon that seemed to be posturing for Helios.

“Of course, Professor! That explains the novels in her purse!” Sherlock exclaimed. “I need to go back to the crime scene,” he spun on a dime, his coat flapping dramatically, but he only made it a few yards before having to stop. “Hyperion,” He called, voice strained.

The daemon, which had not bothered to follow, stared him down stubbornly, a puff of smoke escaping his nostrils. “Sherlock,” he growled.

“Come back to see us,” Helios said, bending down so she could ruffle a bit of flame between his head spikes.

Hyperion grinned at her, blue flame dancing along his fangs, “Alright.” He lopped over to Sherlock, flapping his wings at the last second to land on his human’s shoulders. “Laters,” He called, flicking his tail in goodbye. Embarrassed by his daemon’s response, Sherlock ran off without saying anything.

“That man,” Lestrade growled, throwing up his hands. “I have to go, John, but I need you to stay in town for the next few days, okay?”

“Yeah, I’m not going anywhere,” John said, bemused. Helios looked so proud of herself, tail feathers held high, wings extended.

When the police were gone, John ran a hand along his Daemon’s side, feeling the muck that had gathered in her once beautiful fur. “Carol warned us to be careful.”

“We’ve never been very good at that,” Helios responded, leaning into his touch.

“No, we really haven’t. Think you could track that man, Sherlock?”

“Course, Hyperion smells like ozone and chemicals, he’s rather unique,” Helios practically purred.

“That’s an understatement. Come on, I think we both could use some cleaning up.”

John went to the nearest hotel and used some of the money that had been collecting in his account to rent a room. The kid at the front desk, glared at both of them, but he couldn’t say anything when the card went through.

He washed Helios first. It was an effort squishing her into the small tub, but they worked together to get the dirt from her coat. It took an entire bottle of shampoo and conditioner to get it back to its proper shine. Her feathers were in disarray, and John had to spend an hour with them sprawled across the room while he preened them back into place, linking the primaries so she would be able to fly once more.

When John finally entered the shower, he was disgusted to watch the water run black as he washed his own hair and beard. He had never let himself get this bad, not even in Afghanistan. He used a razor to shave off his rather patchy beard, but they had to go to a barbers to deal with his hair. 

They left the hotel after Helios had managed to dry off, a process that resulted in water and fur all over the hotel room. The barber looked askew at Helios when they entered, but John offered a harmless smile and 20 quid. He was in a chair in seconds. 

It was a blessing to have his hair tamed back to military shortness, and he traded his dirty clothes at a local thrift shop for a jumper and jeans. They were a size too big, but they were clean and smelled like detergent. It was like putting on a new skin. Despite his cane, John found himself standing taller, head held high.

Helios did not hide. She trotted at his side, wings held loose, ears up and proud. She found Hyperion’s scent at the park, but there were no police or Sherlock around.

It was a bit more effort to track the scent from there. Sherlock seemed to have taken some ridiculous route through London, following back alleys and skips. They ended up in front of a nice flat in downtown Baker Street with the number 221B beside the door.

“Should we knock,” Helios asks, peering at the door.

“Well we can hardly break in,” John grumbles, glaring at the door. If Sherlock didn’t live here, it was going to be very embarrassing. With a sigh, John knocked on the door. 

It was opened by an old woman, probably in her early seventies. Though John was surprised to see her giant river otter Daemon. He had once watched a documentary of that species chasing off a full grown alligator in defense of its pups. 

“Are you here for Sherlock, that boy never answers the door,” she remarks with motherly exasperation.

“Yes, um, I’m looking for Sherlock,” John replies, trying to decide if this woman is Sherlock’s mother. She doesn’t really look like him. 

“Go on up dear.” The woman points him to a door at the top of the stairs, she hardly spares a glance at Helios. 

The door at the top of the stairs is open, Sherlock is standing on an old couch, staring at a map pinned to the wall. There are a series of colored pins in the map, one of which is labeled with Carol’s picture. “Is that all the people who were killed?” John asks. 

Sherlock startles, spinning on the couch to look at him. From the corner of the room, Hyperion trots over, looking excited.

“Ah, John. Helios has previous tracking training, then. The Army, of course, there’s always something.” 

“Er…” John pauses, trying to decipher Sherlock’s words, “Yeah, we did bomb disposal between missions.” He steps next to Sherlock to get a better look at the map. A few of the victim pictures have daemon profiles attached, but not Carol’s. “Poor Sage, I always thought the worst thing about Afghanistan was seeing the daemons disappear, nothing but a memory.” 

Sherlock watches John for a moment, before his whole face brightens. “Oh!” he exclaims, “OH!” He grabs John by his shoulders and spins him around. “It’s the Daemons, they were all birds!” He leaps over to one of the dusty arm chairs in the room and pulls a handbag from beside it. The bag is old and torn and looks very familiar. 

“That’s Carol’s,” John says, surprised to see it. 

“Yes, found it in a skip near the park. The murderer was looking for something.”

“Looking for what? Not money,” John furrows his brow in confusion.

“No, he was looking for proof of witchcraft,” Sherlock grins. “He didn’t find anything, of course, a bird daemon is hardly proof of magic, but he has been working his way through the city looking for a witch.”

“Why?” John asks. 

“Bird daemons are notorious for being able to travel further away from their humans than most. Its simple logic. Humans can adjust to distance from their daemons a little bit at a time, and birds are more likely to travel further. I imagine Helios can go much further away from you than most,” Sherlock explains in a rushed breath. 

“Oh,” John murmurs, unwilling to admit that they can be separated by miles with little discomfort. “But why does he need a witch’s daemon?”

“He’s experimenting with intercision,” Sherlock says, his voice soft. Hyperion shivers at his side. Intercision is the stuff of nightmares, a vicious medical practice of separating a human from their daemon. 

“Christ,” John gasps, “I thought that process had been lost after WWII.” Helios presses against his side, the mention of intercision enough to send shivers down her spine. 

“Nothing so powerful would be so easily lost. The real question is who got their hands on it.”

“How do we find him?” John asks. 

Sherlock stares at him for a long moment before giving a decisive nod. “I have a plan.” 

***

It’s a horrible plan. 

Years ago witches were only female, but as the world grew, so did their ranks. There were now just as many male witches as female, and with Helios at his side, John could easily pass as one. 

Sherlock makes him dress up in some old witch’s garb that makes him look like some homeless palm reader. John then spends the next 4 hours limping around downtown London with Helios at his side. Occasionally, he has Helios wander far enough away from him to look suspicious. John’s never felt so exposed, but his heart beats calm in his chest and his hand is steady. The handgun pressed against his back is a solid comfort. 

Close to 0100 he still hasn’t been approached and Sherlock texts him to come back to Baker street. John grabs the first cab that will stop for him. That’s when everything goes to shite. 

John remembers getting into the cab, but not much else until he wakes up a few hours later with a pounding headache. His mouth is dry and his throat scratchy, but he calls out, “Helios?”

“Here, John,” She whines in the distance, sounding woozy, but okay. 

When John can focus, he looks around the room. It’s brightly lit and looks like someone’s living room. He’s handcuffed to an old radiator which is warm against his back, but doesn’t burn. Overall, its rather anticlimactic for a serial killer, but John is well aware what the killer is capable of. 

Helios is on the other side of the room. She has a muzzle on and a metal chain around her neck, the lead wrapped around an stone support pillar. She can open her mouth just wide enough to talk, but not wide enough to produce much flame. 

“So sweet,” a man’s voice says from the side of the room. 

John faces the voice. The man is old, hair grey and thin. His skin is sickly pale, dark bruise smudged beneath his eyes. He’s dressed in a grey cardigan and torn trousers, a strange combination beside the red fox pelt slung around his shoulders. When the man raises his hand, John notices the bloody bandages wrapped around the stumps of his index and pinky fingers. 

“Pretty isn’t she, her fur was always so shiny,” the man murmurs rubbing the fur of the fox pelt. 

John has a sudden sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

“She isn’t feeling well, but he said he’d help her if I brought him a daemon. They also die so quickly, but yours is special. I think he’ll like her,” the man grins, holding up a wicked looking knife. 

“You’re insane, that’s just a old pelt!” John yells, kicking out at the man, but he’s not close enough to hit. 

“She’s just sick,” the man snarls. He steps up to Helios and grabs her by the scruff. She snarls viciously beneath the muzzle, but can barely move. 

John screams. Someone is touching his daemon and its not right. Pain shoots down his spine like molten lead and its worse then being shot. “Helios!”

When the man brings the knife down he actually slices the air in front of her, but it still manages to make the burn in his spine expand to his whole body. 

John watches with tears in his eyes as the knife seems to get stuck on something in the air. 

The man grunts, pushing with both hands against the knife even as his bandaged fingers start to drip blood. 

The pain is like nothing John has ever felt before, and for some reason all he can think of is the night Helios settled, the night when she became something unheard of to save him, and now when she needs him he can’t fucking move!

John was an orphan, than a doctor, than a soldier. He’d be damned if he let this mad man separate him from his daemon. He pulls against his cuffs until he feels his thumbs pop out of joint. It barely stings compared to everything else. He frees himself from the cuffs and pops his thumbs back into place with the ease of a trained doctor. 

The man doesn’t notice him, until John has his arm around his throat and is pulling him away from Helios. 

“You can’t, you can’t,” the man screams, when John plucks the knife from his grip. The man is weak as a kitten, his struggles useless when John presses the knife against his throat. “Who is the man you were talking about? The one that needed a daemon?”

The man sniffles, tears and snot running down his face. “He’ll kill her. He’ll kill her for good.”

“I imagine John will beat him to the punch if you don’t answer the question Mr. Hope,” Sherlock’s smooth voice comments from the doorway. 

John glances up in surprise. 

Sherlock is leaning against the doorway, looking almost bored at the proceedings. Hyperion is over by Helios, manipulating the chain with claws and flame to get it off her. 

John is suddenly quite aware of the sound of sirens in the distance. 

“Lestrade should be here shortly,” Sherlock comments. 

 

“Then I don’t have long,” John growls, pressing the knife until a thin red line appears on Mr. Hope’s throat. 

“Please, I just want her back,” he cries. 

“Sherlock is the best detective in the city, tell me who took her and we may be able to get your daemon back,” John offered, since threats seemed useless.

“Moriarty, his name is Moriarty,” Mr. Hope sobs. 

John steps back, but keeps the knife gripped tightly in his hand, but Mr. Hope just curls up in place.

“John,” Helios barks, she almost jumps on him, but pauses with a glare at the knife. John stabs it into the wall, before kneeling down. He curls his arms around her neck and breaths in the comforting scent of her fur. 

“Helios,” he gasps. He had been so close to losing her. His body aches all over and now that the adrenaline is fading, his thumbs are agony, but with Helios pressed against him, none of that matter. 

“I...er.. may have miscalculated, a bit. Just a bit, mind you. The tracker worked splendidly,” Sherlock says, standing awkwardly to the side. 

“Right, good timing that,” John says, standing to better face him, though he keeps one hand on Helios. 

“We need a flatmate,” Hyperion blurts, leaping onto Sherlock’s shoulder. “We’ll find Moriarty, stop this from ever happening again.”

John listens to the sirens growing closer and the anguished wail of the man on the floor. He can understand the madness, just looking at the fox pelt makes him ill. What he needs to know is who this Moriarty is and why he’s trying to steal someone’s daemon. 

“I said you were the best detective in this city.”

“Yes,” Sherlock scowls, “a bit of an understatement, really.”

“Think you can find Moriarty?” Helios says, hackles raised. 

“Yes,” Hyperion grins. 

“Then I think we’ll take that upstairs bedroom,” John answers, just as he hears the pounding of police footsteps from downstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end of this story for now. Sequel is a def maybe, however.


End file.
